On Screen

May 26 - June 1, 2018—23 The Greeneville Sun, Greeneville, TN The Greeneville Sun, Greeneville, TN May 26 - June 1, 2018 — 23 27, on ABC, a field of 33 including Graham Rahal, James Hinchcliffe, Sebastien Bourdais, Josef Newgarden and defending champion Takuma Sato will take to the 2.5-mile oval of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, looking to take home a replica of the Borg-Warner Trophy and down the traditional swig of milk in Victory Lane. By George Dickie © Zap2it When it was announced in March that ABC/ESPN's relationship with IndyCar would end with the 2018 season, it marked a close to 54 years of broadcasting America's premier open- wheel series and its most famous race, the Indianapolis 500. Those rights go over to NBC Sports in 2019. It also means Scott Goodyear, who has been providing analysis on the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" since 2002, is without a microphone next year. And with all his other business interests and demands, he's OK with that. "It's just like anything else in the world," the former IndyCar driver reasons. "It's a business and the way that I viewed it is almost like being a driver or being with sponsorship or what have you. You know, that's what you're doing this year and next year you could be driving for a different team, and here television's the same way. It's on ABC this year and changes over to NBC next year. So not shocked but just a little bit surprised." As the venerable race revs up for its 102nd running Sunday, May CroSSWord Solution Puzzle on Page 17 Sudoku Solution Puzzle on Page 25 filled by client As for drivers to keep an eye on here, Goodyear expects entries from the Penske (including Newgarden and Will Power), Chip Ganassi (Scott Dixon, Ed Jones) and Andret - ti (Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter- Reay, Marco Andretti) teams to be factors, along with dark horses such as Matheus Leist and Sage Karam. And they'll vie in a venue known for rapidly changing weather, which has been known to change track conditions and thus make life inter- esting for teams and drivers. "There's no other racetrack in the world that has such a dramatic change on two things — the feel of the race car and the performance of the race car — than the weather at Indianapolis Motor Speedway," says Goodyear, an 11-time Indy 500 starter. "And you can get out there and be running a car in the morning and then all of a sudden the clouds start to come over, the atmospheric pressure changes and the day changes. "And you go back out there three hours later," he continues, "and sometimes you want to get on the radio and say to your team, 'What did you do to this thing? I mean, it's like I can't even drive it. What did you guys change?' 'We didn't change anything.' So that's how dramatically the weather changes." Editor's Pick The Indianapolis 500 revs up for the 102nd time — and last on ABC The 2018 Indianapolis 500 airs Sunday on ABC.

• Cover